Touch: Dances with Dragons

Hey, did you know that there are some fire ants from the rainforest who, in the event of a flood, will cling to one another to create a super-upsetting and skin-crawling ant raft which can survive for (supposedly) months? Jake the magical mute child explains that it’s an example of how if a species “wants to survive” it has to “prove it.” Um, no. This is now how nature works, Jake. A species’ survival is more about mutations and genetic recombinations and natural selection and nothing to do with the species, especially a species like fire ants, “choosing” to survive and then go through a series of tests to “prove” they want it badly enough. BUT WHATEVER. METAPHOR. Jake wonders how the first fire ants who did this raft trick figured it out, but I don’t think it was a whole cognitive process on the part of the fire ants, but instead more just a bunch of clingy ants instinctively grabbing hold of whatever was nearby when their little ant brains registered WATER!, and then they survived the flood and their queen passed down this clinginess to future generations of fire ants, whereas the more aloof fire ants ended up drowning and not reproducing. Because that’s how nature works, Jake.

Jake, who is still at the social services center, somehow gets his hands on a phone (?) and calls his father, Jack Bauer and is all, ” … ” Jack Bauer rushes over there, bursting through the doors even though it’s 6 a.m. or whatever, and this is exactly why Jake keeps escaping, because there are no locks on any of the doors, anywhere. Social Worker, who is at work awfully early, scolds Jack Bauer for barging over just because Jake supposedly called him and that this whole “communicating through numbers” thing is craziness — even though she totally believes in it. Jack Bauer is like, “Whatever, Scully, let me see my kid.”

But when they head into Jake’s room, his bed is empty because of course it is. They find Jake outside Door #6, which he had placed his little red-painted hand on last week, and writing the numbers “3287” over and over again in his crazybook. As Social Worker leads Jake away, she again angry-whispers at Jack Bauer that he can’t just come running everytime Jake calls him — which, YES HE CAN, JAKE IS HIS 10-YEAR-OLD SON, COME ON — and Jake shoves a piece of paper in Jack Bauer’s pocket and stares at him VERY HARD so that we know that this is Very Important.

Jack Bauer takes the paper out of his pocket, which has a picture of a dragon with “fire and blood” the number 3287 written on it.

Confounded by this, Jack Bauer takes this clue to Danny Glover and is like, “So, I’m just going to be running down these numbers for Jake forever?” And Danny Glover’s like, “Yep, that’s the plot, Jack Bauer! You’ve figured it out!” Danny Glover blathers about how Jake feels the “pain” of the universe or some nonsense, and that Jack Bauer has a choice: he can either follow the numbers or leave his 10-year-old child in — quite literally for Jake — indescribable pain. This is not much of a choice! Danny Glover also warns Jack Bauer, that he’s going to want to keep this whole thing with the numbers and the universe and seeing into time hush hush because other people might take notice of this magical kid who can predict the future and then what? (Season two is what.)

Jack Bauer is just walking down the street in “Queens,” when some homeless lady throws herself in front of a cab for no particular reason. As Jack Bauer hollers for someone else to call 911 because I guess he’s trying to keep his own cell phone free in case his son needs to call him and say nothing?, he spies a homeless man sneak over, grab a book out of the lady’s purse and run away. WELL THAT CAN’T STAND. So Jack Bauer just cold abandons the run-over lady and chases the homeless guy down the street until he catches up with him because he’s Jack Bauer and the homeless guy is Chuck from Supernatural, and Jack Bauer is always going to win that race. Chuck protests that the book is actually his, and shows Jack Bauer that it’s filled with numbers because of course it is. Chuck explains that he is an invisible prince who is on a mission to kill the “dragon” and to do so he has to go on his rounds, and Jack Bauer is like, HMM, THIS ALL SEEMS VERY FAMILIAR, and decides to follow Chuck, because it sounds like Chuck is in a far superior show.

Jack Bauer and Chuck hide behind a wall and spy on some woman as she crosses the street, pressing the crosswalk button for her as if that actually does anything, and also there’s nothing creepy about any this, not at all. Chuck then steals a carnation from a floral stand and places it on a bus bench where some lady picks it up and smells it, which, no, carnations don’t smell like anything, not really. Chuck babbles about the dragon and a king and a magical buried sword and how the battle is tonight, as the two ladies, Crosswalk Lady and Carnation Lady, meet in front of an office building that GASP! has a dragon on it. Jack Bauer, he understands that this is Important.

Somewhere along the way Jack Bauer loses Chuck and goes inside the building where he eavesdrops on the ladies’ conversation. Something something settlement something no proof something Madoff something. Jack Bauer continues his spying mission by going upstairs with the women to Dragon Bank’s office where he lies to the receptionist and claims to be a plaintiff’s representative. This brilliant plan is ruined by some young guy named Rush Middleton who used to work with Jack Bauer at the newspaper back when Jack Bauer had a job and didn’t spend his days running around New York punching strangers at telephones and getting old men shot in the arm. It seems Rush has been following this story about some financial lawsuit for 3 years now, and he’s not going to let Jack Bauer waltz in and scoop him, except he totally will if Jack Bauer can get the only plaintiff who hasn’t spoken to Rush to talk. And he gives Jack Bauer the plaintiff’s name and address: Roger King, 3287 Avondale St. It’s all coming together! Because that’s what this show does!

Jack Bauer goes to the building and buzzes Roger King, but Roger King is dead and Roger King’s son Charlie, he does not want to talk about the class action lawsuit thankyouverymuch, pleasetogoawaynow. Jack Bauer then asks Charlie if he knows anything about the “invisible prince” and Charlie buzzes him in because, sure. Who wouldn’t? Inside, Charlie explains that the invisible prince was a character in a bedtime story his father used to tell him and his brother. When his brother grew up, he became a number sooperjenius and went to work as an accountant at the Dragon Bank. There, he came up with some sort of formula that made the company billions, and encouraged his father and a bunch of friends and family to invest. EXCEPT! the dragon bank used the formula fraudulently against their investors, and stole all of the monies. And then the brother became Chuck the Homeless Guy.

Jack Bauer explains to Charlie that his brother said something about a sword? And somehow Charlie extrapolates that his brother was talking about “the sword of truth” which might be in these boxes his brother left behind before he became Chuck the Homeless Guy that Charlie never bothered to go through, because PLOT! Jack is able to open a safe found in one of the boxes with the code 3287, obvs, and inside are internal memos from Dragon Bank where all the bankers twist their moustaches and plot to take away all the monies of the widows and the orphans. But, OHNOES! The settlement meeting ends at 6 p.m.! Jack Bauer only has 17 minutes to run 22 blocks to deliver this “sword of truth” to the settlement meeting and “slay the dragon!” DAMMIT, THERE’S NO TIME.

Running through “Manhattan,” running through “Manhattan,” running through “Manhattan.”

But instead of going to the settlement conference, Jack Bauer goes to the newspaper office and just wanders into the newsroom (nope) and hands Rush Middleton the documents so that he can break the story. Jack Bauer doesn’t need any credit. CTU frowns on that sort of thing. And somehow this fixes everything? Even though the plaintiffs are probably going to sign their lives away before Rush’s story can break? But then Crosswalk Lady and Carnation Lady are shown in a bar drinking champagne so I guess somehow this plan worked somehow? Occupy Dragon Bank!

Jack finds Chuck and is all, “Hey dude, I killed that dragon for you. No need to thank me.” Chuck then beknights Jack? He makes him an “invisible knight?” So basically Jack Bauer has become a super-secret spy again, except instead of snapping people’s necks and putting lampwires on their nipples in the name of National Security, he’s chasing homeless people and harassing strangers. In the name of quantum entanglement. Got it. Oh, and Jack Bauer encourages Chuck to go home already, because: Go home, Chuck. Wash your hair. You’ll feel a lot better.

Meanwhile, at some sort of weird Lollapalooza/Rock Band-but-dance internet competition (I don’t know either), tWitch is beaten as Best Dancer Ever by a small child in South African, while Small Child in South Africa’s sister chases off her best friend’s abusive boyfriend by banging a pot with a spoon (I don’t know either). tWitch then meets some girl who was stood up by some other dude, and who is watching turrrible-sounding YouTube videos of a girl doing cartwheels in front of her dog (I don’t know either) on the phone that the Cos Play Prostitute Twins from Japan left behind at the bar at the Lollpalooza/Rock Band-But-Dance-Internet-Contest, WHICH, NO. Because here’s the thing: after the Cos Play Prostitute Twins uploaded the Irish Singer’s video onto the Jumbotron in Tokyo, the phone with the videos WAS SENT TO IRAQ where it was SUPPOSED TO BE USED AS A BOMB except that the suicide bomber was saved at the LAST MINUTE and presumably he returned the phone to the GRIEVING FATHER WHO LOST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, so what the hell is this phone supposed to be? Some other phone? How’d the stupid videos get on it and why do the Cos Play Prostitute Twins from Japan have it? HEY, TRY TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR OWN MYTHOLOGY IN AT LEAST THE FIRST THREE EPISODES, KRING. And never mind that there is no connection whatsoever between this story and the Dragon Bank story except that Charlie King’s son was just about to compete against tWitch on the internetz until Charlie was like, “Hey, get off the computer,” when Jack Bauer was visiting him or something. I DO NOT KNOW EITHER.

And back at the social services center (which curiously has some very precarious-looking water sculptures from SkyMall that seem like A Very Bad Idea to have decorating a social services center that handles troubled kids), Jake rolls a red car under the door of Room 6 while Social Worker is all WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Social Worker asks her boss who is in Room 6, and Boss Lady is like, Uh, no one?

Social Worker then receives notice that her mother, who is a schizophrenic and whom Social Worker hasn’t heard from in 6 years, is in the hospital having been hit by a car, and we’re all Oh! Obviously Social Worker’s Mom is that homeless lady Jack Bauer ignored and left for dead!, but actually she isn’t. So, see? You don’t always know where this is going, Smart Alec. Except that it’s not going anywhere. And everyone hates red herrings.

Danny Glover goes to the social services center where he knows Boss Lady and clearly Something Very Bad happened in his past. Anyway, Danny Glover happens to be there when Jake has a screaming fit for no discernible reason except Universal Pain, or something. This inspires Danny Glover to return to the Center for Crackpots and create a file on Jake, which, OK?

The red car rolls back out under the door of Room 6, where Social Worker finds it, and ZOMG, IT’S THE GRINGOTT’S GOBLIN BABY, ISN’T IT? Or Social Worker’s mother. It’s obviously Social Worker’s mother.

Jake then narrates some mushy-mouthed nonsense about compassion and heroism and love and Social Worker apologizes to Jack Bauer for yelling at him for being a concerned father. Jack Bauer then tells Jake the story of the invisible knight and the silent king, which, get it? It’s them? Ugh, this show.

One Response

T, they should just air your recaps of this crapfest instead of the crapfest itself.

The Japanese Girls have been in each episode I think and so that makes them, what, Touch Observers? Do you think they are trying to backdoor spinoff the Japanese Girls into a travling America series (where stolen cell phones play a heavy part)? Did I just give Fox its next big pilot for fall 2012?